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That's disrespectful to what Brock was able to do. And the amazingly shallow pool consisted of him fighting a top 10, top 15, top 5, top 10, top 5, top 5, top 5 in his UFC career. He was fighting top 10 guys from the jump. They may of not of had half of the top 10 HW's, he was still fighting top 10 HW's.

Please tell me you aren't including Mir as a top 10 HW when he tapped lesnar. Frankie hadn't beaten a top 25 HW in something like 4 or 5 years when he faced lesnar the first time.
Herring as top 15? Maybe by the UFC hype machine. He'd been inconsistent for years, and his best "win" was a split over a horribly overhyped Kongo...who was not top 15 either.
Then he faced a "top 5" in Randy...who was not only horrifically undersized, but was coming off a year and a half layoff--and still "outwrestled" lesnar. As champion, Randy could hardly have been ranked lower than top 5...but that was a soft ranking for sure. I'd have picked any of the top 5 SF fighters to beat Randy as well--and they wouldn't need a 50lb size advantage to do it.
Then he beat up a probably-juiced up Mir who couldn't decide if he wanted to be big or small. Great, dominant win for him, but Frankie was riding the wave for beating a washed up Nog--which remains his only legitimate top 10 win in almost a decade.
He then got his ass kicked by Carwin, in a fight that could easily have been stopped in the first. Carwin is lesnar's best win. He gets credit for outlasting a guy who'd never been to the second round--even if a DIII wrestler also "outwrestled" a DI champion. I still do not believe Carwin--who I was a huge mark for--was a solidly ranked top 5 fighter at that point.
He then got killed by Cain, who exposed his wrestling technique as mediocre and his allergy to being hit.
He then got killed by a juiced up AO, who may have been softly ranked as high as top 5--but had exactly one win over a top 10 HW in his entire career--the fight where he got outstruck by Werdum.

So no, I'm not buying his awesomeness.
He was a hype-machine dream. He did great as an unknown quantity with tremendous physical gifts. His skillset was always lacking and his chin is suspect.
But he'd still sell.

Is this directed towards me? I've never been a revisionist and arrogant isn't always a negative description, at least in my opinion.

Not at all.

I get more frustrated with fair-weather Fedor fans who wrote off the loss the same way Silva fans wrote off the Weidman KO. I'm an enormous fan of Fedor--but one of the reason's I'm an enormous fan was the way he fought. He did NOT fight arrogantly. There isn't an arrogant cell in Fedor's body. He fought to test himself to the best of his ability, and to the best of his opponents ability. He's the opposite of a Greg Jackson fighter, the opposite of a GSP or Anderson. He was always willing to test himself wherever the fight went. And he paid for it, but that happens to everyone.

But it was never arrogance.

But look at this, we are at 4 pages talking about this. The hype is real.

Yes. lesnar is undeniably draw. He's polarizing enough that the mere thought of him fighting is still a catalyst.

rh

All manner of men came to work for the News: everything from wild young Turks who wanted to rip the world in half and start all over again -- to tired, beer-bellied old hacks who wanted nothing more than to live out their days in peace before a bunch of lunatics ripped the world in half.

I love Brock, but he needs to stay retired. The desire isn't there for him to dedicate himself to MMA, which is what he needs to do if he were to fight top opponents again. Brock is a multi-millionaire & can keep earning big money from WWE. Returning to MMA doesn't make much sense at this point in his career & life.

Rankings are going to be skewed. They sucked then as much as they suck now. The fact that Herring had just fought a hugely hyped HW--remember, at this point people were talking about how great and technical brock's wrestling was--it's going to put him in the minds of many hack journalists.

I could even see Herring's ranking going up after facing lesnar--Heath was brought in as a sacrificial lamb that nobody thought had a chance, and brock couldn't finish him even though he was blind in one eye from the very first punch.

But you're welcome to your opinion. I don't hate brock, and I'm not saying he wasn't a legitimate force in the UFC. I'm saying what I said when people were arguing for him to be in the UFC HOF: taken in context, he achieved more than most expected, but he never lived up to the hype that was spread about him.

He was a great fighter. But I don't think he'd seriously crack the top 5 if he came out of retirement. It's MMA, and on any given night, a Matt Serra can make a Georges St. Pierre tap to strikes, so anything can happen--that's what is so fucking great about MMA. But I don't think his career would be consistent or long-lived if he did come back.

rh

All manner of men came to work for the News: everything from wild young Turks who wanted to rip the world in half and start all over again -- to tired, beer-bellied old hacks who wanted nothing more than to live out their days in peace before a bunch of lunatics ripped the world in half.

Styles make fights and I think Brock would make an awesome addition to the heavyweights. I don't think Brock would beat werdum, cain, or Barnett. But I can see him beating JDS. I don't know if JDS's uppercut would be able to stop Brock's bull charge.